Benjamin Franklin crouched low on hands and knees, pressing his face toward the ash gray soil. The forest surrounding him chirped, clicked, and hummed lazily in the soggy noontime heat.

A sudden rattling in the branches made him look up, for the forest had proven deceptive, these last few months. Sleepy it might be, but it dreamed of panther, Indian ambush, rattlesnake, and the corpse of Benjamin Franklin.

But it was only a flight of green parakeets, settling into a live oak. For the moment, the forest was not trying to kill Franklin. A Spaniard, this forest: disdaining to do much of anything between noon and three o'clock. So this was a good time to pry at the land's secrets. Franklin knelt a little lower, wishing the Coweta hadn't taken his hand lens when they tried to torture him to death. He needed it now. He continued his work with squinting eyes, sat up briefly, scribbled in his book, then peered back at the dirt.

When he heard the footsteps behind him, it was too late. Or would have been, if it hadn't been a friend.

“Reading our futures there, Sir Wizard?”

Franklin didn't turn. “Hello, Voltaire,” he said, the belated tingle of alarm fading. “They fascinate me. Look at them.”

The Frenchman crouched beside him, his long arms folded on narrow knees, a merry grin on a face that was mostly pointed chin. “I take it you mean the ants?” he said.

“Of course. See here, how they form a train to supply their city? I followed this one back—it goes to the corpse of an opossum, some twenty yards in that direction. For ants, that would be a distance of leagues, I should think. And here— these that so fiercely guard the citadel when I threaten it. Like guards or warriors.”

“By ‘citadel’ I assume you mean this little mound of earth.”

“Yes. But, again, if you give an ant the stature of a man, how impressive does his mound become?”

“Modestly so if size is the only quality you note. Even so, it would be only a very large, uneven, unlovely mound of earth. Nothing to be compared to, say, the Louvre or the Sistine Chapel.”

“The ants do not build to impress you, my friend. Given our relative proportions, which would have more space for living and working? This mound, with its tight-packed tunnels, or the Sistine Chapel, with its vaulted ceilings—space mostly wasted in vain grandeur? The ant's eye is all toward efficiency.”

“Ah. They are perhaps German, then, or English. There are no French ants, I suppose?”

“Butterflies I suppose to be French,” Franklin replied good-naturedly. “Fireflies and lacewings.”

“Would that you were right.” The philosopher sighed. “But it was no horde of butterflies that laid waste Europe, no lacewing that left that hole where once London was.”

“No, I suppose not,” Franklin said absently. He bent to watch two ants meet. They seemed to exchange information of some sort, then scurried off purposefully.

“No empty greetings or pleasantries, I'll wager,” Franklin murmured, “no small comments. It's all business with them. The food is there, danger is here, the south tunnel needs repair.”

“You admire them, then?”

Franklin looked up at last, his brow furrowed slightly. “They interest me. Each time we stop, I try to find one of their cities, and indeed they are everywhere. It is not so much to say, I think, that below our feet, scarcely noticed, is an empire we are all but unaware of. Seen from the right prospect, the world could be said to be ruled by ants.”

“Yes? And yet now that you have brought them to my notice, I could destroy their great city there. I could bring this outpost of empire to naught.”

Franklin dusted his hands on his breeches and stood. “Four days ago we passed over ground still smoking. Everything green was burned, and all four-footed things had either fled or succumbed. I found ant cities there scorched black by what must have been terrific heat—and yet they were there. Knock down a mound, and it will be refurbished in the space of a day or two. And then there are the million cities elsewhere, scattered over all the world. For all our greater size and knowledge, I can think of no way we could destroy the race of ants, not utterly.”

“Now I see your studies have a more than theoretical bent,” Voltaire said. “Who do you liken to the ants—mankind or the malakim?”

The very word still sent a tremor through Franklin. He wished his old mentor, Sir Isaac, had named them differently— from the Latin or Greek rather than from the Hebrew. The latter held too much of the fear and fire of the Old Testament.

But then, the malakim were fear and fire.

“We are their ants, I think,” Franklin replied, “living beneath their heels, usually unnoticed. Occasionally we notice them—and worship them as gods, angels, or devils. And occasionally they notice us in turn and grind us beneath their heels.”

“But never all of us, no more than we could grind out all the ants. Is that what you're saying?”

“They've failed until now. But we haven't learned the trick of setting the ants against each other, to pit one city against another and send warriors to the deepest chambers of their catacombs. But the malakim seem to have perfected the science of turning man against man. There are men happily inventing more ways for those aetheric devils to kill us every day.”

Voltaire nodded. “The malakim seem quite determined to exterminate us. More determined than I should be to destroy the kingdom of ants.”

“Perhaps if you had been stung enough, you would have a different opinion. I've heard that in the Amazon, there are ants that march as an army and can strip clean a living man in a few heartbeats.”

“The ants turning the tables and destroying the man? Would that we could be such ants, then, so we might pick clean the bones of our unseen enemy,” Voltaire commented. “For—”

“God's sake, are you two at it again?”

Franklin and Voltaire turned to face the new speaker, a handsome fellow with flowing auburn hair, dressed in buckskin breeches and the shabby remains of a burgundy justaucorps.

“Hello, Robin.”

Robert Nairne leaned against a tree, folding his arms. “The world is all at war, with the angels themselves against us. We wander starvin’ in the wilderness, blood-lusty Indians at our heels, and you fellows are talkin’ philosophyt’ worms an’ such.”

Franklin shrugged and grinned. “The mind is an insatiate master—it demands substance even when the belly has none.”

“My poor brain has enough to chew on, trying to figure ways to help us come through this alive,” Robert commented dryly.

“And right well you do at it,” Franklin said cheerfully. “But between you, Captain McPherson and his rangers, and Don Pedro's braves, that's all well covered, I trust. I don't know how to follow a trail or find fresh water, and you've seen me hunt! I'm best used thinking of our higher problems.”

“So, have the crawlies told you how to defeat all the armies arrayed against us, with our thirty-odd stout fellows?”

“They certainly give me ideas,” Franklin replied, feeling a bit defensive despite his oddly buoyant mood. After all, Robert was right: any sober and sincere thought proved their situation to be a few leagues south of hopeless. And yet … yes, Franklin was hopeful. There was no problem that human ingenuity could not resolve. How could dwelling on the negative help them?

Or worrying—say, about his wife, Lenka.

That thought must have changed his expression.

“What?” Robert asked.

“I was just wondering how the war is going. How Lenka is.”

“She was well, when I left her,” Voltaire said.

“I thought I charged you with keeping an eye on her,” Franklin said.

“She's quite a woman, your wife. She can look after herself. You were the one who needed rescuing—we were all agreed on that.” He paused. “She did feel you neglected her by leaving her behind.”

“I nearly got her killed once. I thought it was safer for her to stay back there. I hope I wasn't wrong.”

“If I had a woman like that, I would let her make her own decisions.”

That stung a little, and Franklin felt a sharp reply in his throat, but he swallowed it down. He wouldn't let his worry and shame speak for him.

“What's done is done. When we reach New Paris, God willing, we will find an aetherschreiber to replace the one the Coweta took from us, and I shall discover how she fares. Until then, I try not to worry. Hope is better tonic than despair.”

Robert nodded agreement. Then his gaze went past Franklin, and he suddenly drew the pistol at his belt, perhaps forgetting he had neither powder nor shot.

Franklin turned to follow his friend's determined and worried stare, and saw that the forest was a lighter sleeper than he had hoped.

Franklin, Robert, and Voltaire stood on a small, grassy field, surrounded by mixed cane, brush, and a few lone oaks fringing a forest of enormous pine. Franklin saw the sun glint off steel, and his vision adjusted. In the tall cane crouched men, at least six of them, possibly many more. Indians, the long barrels of their muskets level to the ground, aimed at Franklin and his companions. And these fellows, Franklin was willing to bet, were well supplied with powder.

“What do we do?” he whispered.

“Nothing, if they want us dead,” Robert replied. “They have us fair.”

“Are they Cowetas? Would they follow us this far?”

“They might. But there is no lack of Indians in this country. They come out of the earth, like this damned cane.”

“Or your ants,” Voltaire added.

“Perhaps we should call for our companions,” Franklin said.

“You wandered some distance from them in your scientific curiosity,” Robert said grimly.

“What then?”

“You're the ambassador,” Voltaire suggested. “Parley with them.”

“Ah. Yes.” Franklin licked his dry lips. “Well, I suppose they know we're here already. Robert, put away your weapon. It's useless anyway.”

“They don't know that.”

“They know you can kill no more than one of them, and probably not that at this range with that popper. Put it away.”

Robert did so reluctantly.

Ben stood a little straighter, showing his empty hands.

“Hello there!” he called. “Who do I have the pleasure of addressing? I am Benjamin Franklin, appointed representative of South Carolina, and I am on a mission of peace and diplomacy.”

There followed a nerve-racking pause but finally a shout came back from the thicket.

“Parlez-vous français? Je ne parle pas anglais.”

“Oui, un petit peu,” Franklin replied. “Je m'appelle Benjamin Franklin, de Carolina Sud—”

“You are in Louisiana,” the fellow replied, still in French. “That is very far from Carolina.”

“I've come to treat with the French king,” Franklin replied. “I have the papers to prove it.”

Another hesitation, and then the voice said, “Come forward, you.” Franklin could see the man now, gesturing with his hand. He wore a blue French coat, but his features looked Indian.

“I'm coming,” Franklin replied.

“Hold there, Señor Franklin!”

Another man had emerged from behind them—also an Indian—a silver crucifix bobbing at his throat, a rapier hanging jauntily at his side, and barbaric tattoos decorating his exposed flesh.

“Don Pedro!” Franklin exclaimed gladly.

“The same,” the Apalachee chieftain replied. He jerked his head toward the Indians in the brush. “What do those skulking scoundrels want?”

“I'm not sure,” Franklin admitted. “They speak French.”

“Yes?” The Apalachee cleared his throat and called out in that language. “I am Don Pedro Salazar de Ivitachuca, prince and Nikowatka of Apalachee. Stop hiding, you rascals, and face me like a man.”

“There are but four of you,” the man in the woods replied. “Lay your arms on the ground or suffer the consequences.”

“You should take your own advice,” Don Pedro replied, and snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, on all sides, the forest began to move as Apalachee warriors seemed to appear magically from behind every tree.

“Much as we despise it,” Don Pedro called, “the Apalachee, too, can skulk. And now, my friend, it is you who are surrounded and outnumbered.”

Another long pause, and then the French-speaker stood. “The French king will mislike this behavior on his own lands.”

“Take us to him, then,” Franklin called back. “That is all we ever desired. Won't you come shake my hand and let us have peace between us? What sense for this warlike behavior, when we are not at war?”

“In these days, everyone is at war,” the man replied. “But I am coming.”

He emerged from the forest a moment later. Seeing him more closely, Franklin guessed he was half Indian, for his features owed strongly to the European. He wore a silver gorget at his throat and carried an officer's smallsword. Beneath his blue coat, his flesh was bare, save for the flap of a loincloth.

“I am Henri Koy Penigault,” he said, when he drew near, “captain of the king's march guard and war captain of the Mobila. Stand your men down, and I will escort you to New Paris.”

Franklin clasped his hand. “Captain Penigault, it is a great pleasure. We feared you were Coweta, for they have been trying to murder us since before the last new moon.”

“Well, we have that in common at least.” Penigault grinned. “An enemy of the Coweta might be a friend of mine. Shall we meet and smoke together?”

Franklin remembered the last time he had smoked the pipe of peace, how near he had come to losing the meal in his belly. But at the moment, his belly was quite empty.

“I would be delighted,” he lied.

After the smoke, however, there was brandy and freshly slain venison, and most fingers came off triggers and sword hilts. Franklin and Voltaire sat around a fire, along with Don Pedro and James McPherson, the rugged captain of the Southern Rangers, regarding Penigault and his chief men across the wavering flames. They were a mixed bunch, French and Indian and one Negro.

“My father was French,” Penigault said. “My mother was Alibamon. I was schooled in New Paris, but I prefer to live here on the frontier, with my mother's people. We keep the borders, as I told you.”

“Thank you for the brandy. I've never tasted the like.”

“Good, yes? We make it from persimmons and wild plums. Now, tell me of your adventures with the Cowetas. We are eager for news of them, and of the Carolinas. We hear little these days, what with the war.”

“I'll want to know what you know of the war,” Franklin said. Is my wife alive? But they couldn't know that.

“Not much,” Penigault said. “The English king has taken both Carolinas. The margravate of Azilia still stands, but word is for not much longer.”

Franklin nodded. “The English king, as you call him, is a pretender to the throne, James Stuart. He took the seaboard colonies by trickery and with the aid of Moscovado troops.”

“Moscovado?”

“Russians,” Voltaire clarified.

“Ah, yes. Tsar Peter. We have heard of him.” There was something in the man's voice, as if he had a secret.

“Yes, well. You may know that years ago the English colonies signed a treaty of mutual protection with Louisiana, with the Cowetas, and with the Spanish in Florida. I've been trying to unite those signatories to fight together against the Pretender and his allies. I went first to the Coweta, and from there was to continue on to New Paris, to treat there with King Philippe.”

“The Cowetas are snakes. They attacked you?”

“They had already been approached by emissaries from the Pretender. They outstripped us, you see, for they came on a flying craft—”

“Shaped something like a great leaf and gliding like a buzzard?”

“Yes. You've seen it?”

“We have. We thought it was a lightning hawk—a creature of legend, a sort of demon that eats children.”

“You were not far wrong in that. Their craft is engined with a demon of sorts. In any event, they had already struck a bargain with the Coweta king, and he determined that we should die by torture. But my good friend Don Pedro prevented that.”

“Praise God, not me,” the Apalachee said, sounding nevertheless quite pleased. “It was our Lord gave me the strength and the foresight to rescue you from the heathens.” He hunched forward. “I assume, my friend, that you are a baptized man?”

“I am,” Penigault acknowledged.

“Then God has delivered us back to Christian lands, as I knew he would.”

Penigault acknowledged that with a tilt of his head. “And so you escaped the Coweta,” he pressed. “Did you take many scalps?”

“I do not brag,” Don Pedro said, “For He-Who-Sits-Above saw it all and knows I tell the truth. I took four scalps myself, and would have taken many more, but it was not for me to risk glorious death that day but to make certain I survived, to deliver Mr. Franklin to his destiny. I see that clearly. We are engaged not merely against the English king or the Russian tsar but against the very forces of hell, and those deceived monarchs merely twitch like puppets for them. Our true enemies are not flesh and blood, but are the damned spirits that ride the wind at night and by day stay hidden in black clouds that crawl in the spaces beneath the world, shunning light.”

Penigault, whom Franklin had reckoned a pragmatic sort, suddenly shivered and crossed himself. “The dark things stir,” he said. “It is well known. The accursed beings walk amongst us. Old men have died, eaten from within. Strange warnings and signs come from the west, where demons dwell. They say the house of the dead has opened up and the damned come to take all our souls. Is this true, Mr. Franklin?”

Franklin drew his brows together, wondering how to explain. The malakim were indeed both the angels and devils of superstition, but they were more than that. Moreover, science had proved them real, and it rankled him to hear them spoken of in these medieval terms, just as Newton's biblical appellation rankled.

A soft voice spoke from beyond the circle of light.

“It is true.”

Franklin peered out and saw faintly red-glinting eyes. Penigault gasped. “A sorcerer.”

“Please join us, Mr. Euler,” Franklin said.

A young man stepped into the light. His mild eyes, now blue, surveyed them all. “I am Leonhard Euler, gentlemen, and I am at your service.”

“You are accursed,” Penigault said. “I saw your eyes!”

“I was once accursed,” Euler said. “I was a warlock of the malakim, a pair of human hands to work their mischief. But I am no longer their tool.”

Penigault looked to Franklin for confirmation.

“So he claims,” Franklin told the Louisianan. “I once doubted him, but he has been a friend to us. Without Mr. Euler, we would all be dead or captive back in Charles Town.” Which does not mean I trust him, Ben finished silently. His brother had been killed by a creature like Euler, and that sort of thing was hard to turn his back on.

“Thank you, Mr. Franklin. Those are kind words.”

Penigault switched his regard back to Franklin.

“And you—you are a wizard, they say. The wizard of Charles Town.”

“I've been called that. I am a man of science, which is the most useful form of wizardry.”

“And can you stop these night-goers?”

“Not alone. But with allies, and the spirit of many peoples—yes. I believe I can.”

Penigault nodded. “I hope you can convince the king, then. I do hope you can.”

“You don't sound optimistic,” Voltaire noticed.

“There are reasons I prefer the marches,” Penigault said glumly.

“There she is, fellows,” McPherson said, “France in America—New Paris.” The ranger's voice held a note of good-natured contempt that Franklin hoped Penigault and his fellows didn't catch. After all, Penigault had not only guided them through the silty maze of the lower Mobile River but had obtained the canoes they now traveled in.

Franklin mopped his brow, grimacing at the slimy sweat that seemed to somehow ooze up from the river itself. He peered ahead to see what the ranger found worthy of his disdain. Not that he was expecting much. The last several leagues had taken them past villages—Indian, European, and Negro —more squalid and impoverished than any he had seen in the interior. While some of the habitants halfheartedly tilled wilted fields of corn, more came wading into the river, begging for food and brandy— especially brandy.

But even thus introduced, even with expectations lowered, to call the town he saw ahead “New Paris” required a breathtaking amount of wishful thinking.

The muddy shores sloped up from the bay, and houses, scarcely distinguishable from the Indian habitations he had grown accustomed to, spilled down to the water and even walked on stilts to mingle with dilapidated docks. At one long stone quay were moored a sloop, a frigate, two brigantines, and a ragged collection of canoes and pirogues— which, for all he knew, was the sum of the modern French navy. Beyond, south, he could see the squat form of Fort Condé commanding the mouth of the bay. It, at least, looked sturdy, though Franklin knew his eye for such things was questionable.

As for the city itself, the mud huts did give way to larger, more impressive dwellings as the eye tracked farther from the shore. And surmounting all of this was a truly … if not grand, at least bizarre structure. It looked like some idiot madman's attempt to construct a chateau. Never in London, Prague, Venice, or anyplace between had Franklin ever seen such a rambling monstrosity, half built of timbers, half of stone, decked in places with a mishmash of columns and towers that even to his untrained eye seemed completely wrong.

But, by God, it was big.

“Mon dieu!” Voltaire exclaimed. “It is a parody of Versailles itself!”

“I hope the real one looks a bit better,” Ben said.

“The real Versailles was in questionable taste, I'll grant you, though doing such questioning aloud once was a faux pas of the Bastille sort. Next to that—that thing—however, it was sublime.” He cocked his head. “Who rules here? Do you know?”

“The last I heard it was Philippe VII. Does that explain anything to you?”

“The former duke of Orléans? No, it doesn't explain much to me. He was a strange little man, flighty, not given much to serious matters, but not known for such dramatic bad taste either. He was a lover of science, though.”

“Perhaps that would explain why the upper tier of the palace is crusted with those glowing gargoyles,” Ben said. It was almost dusk, and the pale pink glow of alchemical light was clearly visible, both in the castle and outside.

“Here come the gunboats,” McPherson said.

“Let me talk to them,” Penigault said. “I'll explain who you are.”

Franklin turned a wary eye on the approaching craft. “Sterne and his cronies have been here for almost a month. He's had plenty of time to poison the well, as he did at Coweta. I hope we fare better here.”

“It does feel a bit stupid just walking in,” Robert added by way of agreement. “Sterne is a persuasive warlock.”

“And a murdering one,” Franklin said. “But what else are we to do? Skulk about? That will never get us a meeting with these French. The only way to do it is to be bold. Still, it's been nice knowing you fellows, should anything go wrong.”

“And if it don't?” McPherson asked.

“Then you are the smelliest bunch of blockheads I've had the poor fortune to share a canoe with,” Franklin replied. That got a few nervous laughs.

He glanced back. Don Pedro and his Apalachee warriors filled two more boats, which was comforting, though Franklin doubted that their increased numbers would matter much here.

“Voltaire, you say you know this duke somewhat.”

“I've met him.”

“How do y’ suppose he would take to Sterne and Sterne's King James?”

Voltaire offered a Gallic shrug. The journey had taken pounds from him that he could ill afford, and he looked almost like a scarecrow in his muddy justaucorps. “Louis XIV, his uncle, was always kindly disposed toward the pretenders to the English throne, as they were thorns in the British backside. He supported both James’ conquest of Scotland, and was supporting it still when the comet fell. Orléans and James used to sport a bit, though I seem to remember they also had some argument over a certain mistress. As I said, Philippe never had much of a political head on his shoulders—what with the way things have gone, I'm very much surprised he has any sort of a head on his shoulders, much less any fraction of a kingdom to rule.” He repeated the shrug. “I'm sorry. I cannot say.”

“Will he remember you?”

“If he does, I'm not sure it would be with favor. I was exiled from France for writing a satire of the court at Versailles—which he seems to have satired here quite a bit better than I ever did.”

“Ah. Well, you should be able to help us with our manners, at the very least.”

“Always count on me for the very least.”

The gunboats drew up, and French marines in blue justaucorps called a challenge. They were armed with what looked like Fahrenheit guns.

Penigault spoke rapid-fire French, and tired as he was, Franklin had trouble following it.

He saw the result though. The marines snapped up their guns and fired.